The present disclosure relates generally to helmets used in athletic events. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to a facemask used to protect the face of a wearer of the helmet.
Various activities either necessitate, by their very nature, or mandate, by the governing bodies for those activities, the wearing of a helmet by its participants. This is especially true in the sporting world for such sports as football, hockey, lacrosse, and the like. There are various helmets for these various sports that are typically designed to protect the wearer of the helmet, or the participant in the sport, based upon the particular sport's activities, risks, and organizational requirements. Generally, in several of these sports there is a face protection area, sometimes referred to as a facemask or a face shield. Although these facemasks can take various shapes and forms, they are typically designed to keep objects from striking the face of the wearer of the helmet during participation in the activity. American football is one sport in which a facemask is utilized.
Most of the face guards in American football are made of metal. These facemasks are typically the portion of the helmet that can receive the most force during participation in the sport. Most of the metallic face guards on the market are manufactured from either solid or hollow wire type bar. This bar is cut into sections and then formed into specific designs, generally based upon the position played by the wearer of that particular helmet. Once these designs are formed, they are held in shape by welding overlapping wires in place. Traditionally the wire masks are made from a carbon steel. These prior art masks can be referred to as bent wire facemasks or face guards. There are several regulatory industry standards in which these bent wire face guards must meet.
These prior art face guards have limitations. Most notably the limitations are in the materials that comprise the facemask. High strength alloys can be very difficult to bend and weld into the desired designs. As such, metals with lower strength properties are typically used for conventional facemasks. When these lower strength property metals are used, more material is needed to meet the performance requirements by the regulatory bodies, thus the weight of the prior art facemasks increases.
Another limitation in the conventional facemasks is in the aesthetics and configurations. This from the fundamental design of the conventional facemasks. As previously mentioned, wire bars are cut into specific lengths and fixed into place for the conventional facemask designs. Each of these segments has the same cross section, as they are cut from the same bar. This limits the mask design and does not allow for strength optimization by varying the wall thickness to increase the strength of the facemask where needed, such as at high impact locations. Correspondingly, it does not allow for the reduction of cross sectional area for a reduction in weight at areas where reduced strength is required, such as low impact areas.
Another limitation of the current offerings are in the welds themselves. This welding process can require extra skill and time to manufacture and runs the risk of separation by an impact during the sporting event.
What is needed then is a new facemask for a helmet. Preferably this new facemask overcomes the limitations of the prior art and provides a structurally sufficient facemask to meet industry and regulatory standards while reducing as much weight of the facemask as possible for the wearer of the helmet. Preferably this needed mask can take advantage of varying cross sections to maximize protection areas where needed and reduce weight in areas of lower impact in the facemask. This needed facemask is lacking in the art.